For his first outing as Missoni’s new creative director, Filippo Grazioli played the reductionist card, offering a palate-cleanser collection which, while rooted in the house’s classics, was stripped of the typical Missoni joie de vivre and pizzaz in favor of a sexier, body-con take. Clearly his eyes were on a younger audience, as well as the current trend for ’90s sexy minimalism and the celebrity scene, which favors high-octane visibility.
Grazioli showed a very tight edit; the same version of the sleek, figure-hugging silhouette of the season was proposed on repeat, with variations only in lengths, which were either midi or über-mini. The repetition was apparently deliberate, as the same outfit, be it long or short, was shown in different color variations, thinned to just five options, with yellow, cyan, and magenta playing against ink black and optical white. The kaleidoscopic Missoni palette, one of the label’s most compelling features, was notably absent.
The vast repertoire of archival Missoni patterns was equally submitted to Grazioli’s condensed, concise approach; just a few motifs, like the zig zag, the fiammato and the Raschel fabric, passed muster and were re-worked into neat, incisive graphic renditions.
At a preview, Grazioli said that he wanted to “shine a light” on Missoni’s true self, seeing its heritage through a prismatic lens giving out a new chromatic partition. He certainly is an experienced designer, who cut his teeth at Hermès and Givenchy with Riccardo Tisci: he understands luxury, and knows how to cut a sexy, slender number. Easing into the role of creative director of a brand of such strong character will take some time. It’d be interesting to see him playing with the house’s codes with a freer, more daring approach, expanding his creative reach.
